The second edition of the Dominica leg of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) ICT Roadshow moves to the remote, rural community of Petite Soufriere on Thursday December 29th 2011.
Designed to raise regional awareness of the innovative approaches required for the effective application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in every sphere of endeavour, the theme for the Roadshow is Harnessing the Power of Innovation – the engine for ICT-enabled Caribbean development.
The event at Petite Soufriere is part of a Community Outreach Program launched in November 2011 to sensitize communities around the island to the nature and objectives of the Roadshow, while the main Roadshow event will be hosted in Roseau from January 16th to 19th 2012.
The Community Outreach Program has so far consisted primarily of highlighting of e-government initiatives like the ASUCUDA World solution already deployed at the ports, the Unified Land Information system (ULIS), the Agricultural Information Management System (AIMS) and the government website (www.dominica.gov.dm).
These presentations have been largely developed and provided by the e-Government Steering Committee and the EGRIP Project, and have been staged at the communities of Soufriere, Grand Bay, Portsmouth, Kalinago Territory, Castle Bruce and St. Joseph. Roadshow stops in other communities had to be suspended due to the inclement weather of early December.
At the Roadshow’s next stop, residents of Petite Soufriere will be provided with the access and means to communicate with family and friends in the Diaspora in a live video conference. Local service provider LIME, as with all other Community Outreach venues, is once again partnering with the Roadshow to provide the high internet bandwidth needed on location for the exercise.
All residents of Petite Soufriere and neighboring communities of Good Hope and San Sauveur are invited to participate, as the young and experienced are expected to assist the elderly of the community and those normally without internet access to benefit from this opportunity. The community is taking the event in good stride and is hosting a Jing-Ping traditional sewinale dance right after the event.
The Roadshow will subsequently continue with another event at Petite Soufriere in early January when star partner DBS Radio will do a live broadcast from the village, including a panel discussion on Telecommunications Access to Remote Rural Communities, with residents being the live audience expressing their experiences accessing telecommunications services, as an exemplar of other such communities on the island.
The Ministry of Information, Telecommunications and Constituency Empowerment, and the Department of Establishment, Personnel and Training thanks corporate sponsors DIGICEL, LIME, MARPIN 2K4, DBS Radio, Ross University, Campbell’s Business Systems and those yet to fully come on board, for their support for ICT Roadshow 2012.
Information on the Roadshow can be obtained from Mr. Abraham Durand, Roadshow Coordinator (266 3027/225 0008, [email protected], Facebook – Abraham J. Durand), or Mr. Sylvester Cadette, Director of Telecommunications (266 3275, [email protected]).
that’s a good initiative
This is a big step for the people of the east especially Good Hope, San Sauveur and Petite Soufriere since we dont usually have big events in our communities like this. I would like to say thanks to the event cordinators and the sponsors for making this event possible and hope there will be bigger things to come for these communities especially Petite Soufriere.
BIF TINGS A GWAN UP COUNTRY.